A Million Miles from Home

Created by Sebastian Hör | 06/14/2018 Micronews

In Germany, space travel is currently on everyone’s mind – a few days ago, Alexander Gerst, German native from Künzelsau, arrived at the International Space Station ISS for the second time in his career, where he will take command of the “Horizons” mission for two months as the first German to do so. Living in zero gravity not only requires an in-depth knowledge of the natural sciences, but also outstanding physical fitness. But where does Rutronik fit into all this?

Healthy Travels through the Galaxy

Humankind has long since conquered the Moon, with Mars supposed to be our next destination. US President Donald Trump announced this goal in December 2017. The ambitious technology pioneer Elon Musk is also working towards achieving this with his space technology company SpaceX, and plans to launch the first mission to Mars in 2019. But in contrast to the Moon, which is only a comparatively trivial 385,000 kilometers away from Earth, a flight to Mars is no stone's throw - the planet's distance to Earth varies between 55.6 and 101.3 million kilometers, depending on where both planets are in their elliptical orbit.

This means the demands astronauts must meet on a manned mission to Mars are extraordinarily high - and space travel today is already no walk in the park. Astronauts must be in excellent physical condition "just" to fly to the ISS. While there, they constantly carry out numerous experiments of all kinds - particularly those that serve to research earthly diseases. The Munich-based start-up cosinuss could be a part of such experiments in the near future. The company develops technologies and sensors to measure vital functions using a small earbud. In this context, cosinuss collaborates with TRISH (Translational Research Institute for Space Health) and NASA.

The start-up has already developed its product degree, which is an in-ear thermometer for measuring fever in small children based on Nordic's nRF52840-SoC. cosinuss is now taking this principle to a new level with its earbud for astronauts. The technology is designed to measure heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen saturation, heart rate variability, blood pressure, and other parameters. Parameters that are certainly also of interest for applications down here on terra firma. cosinuss is also working with Nordic on the new project in order to use the best available components for its ambitious project. And what's good enough for space certainly can't be bad for Earth. As a distribution partner, Rutronik's product range includes numerous innovative products from Nordic: https://www.rutronik24.com/nordic.html